Motorola

With the coming destruction of Pebble and the announcement by Motorola that it doesn’t “see enough pull in the market to put [a new smartwatch] out at this time,” you would be excused for thinking the smartwatch world is contracting. This is correct, but this is not the end of for wearables.
Apple sold 1.1 million Apple Watches in 2016, 73% less than it sold in 2015. The… Read More

Two key things we learned during a Motorola press event in Chicago this week: 1) The company’s bullish on modular phones and 2) Not so much with smartwatches.
The Lenovo-owned smartphone maker’s head of global product development Shakil Barkat told the audience that, “We don’t see enough pull from the market at this point to put out a new product,” when speaking… Read More

At launch, the Moto Z was compatible with three different modular backings (four if you count the shell projector): a Motorola pico projector, a speaker from JBL and an Incipio battery pack. Shortly after launch, the company brought a little camera brand legitimacy to the ecosystem with a Hasselblad back featuring 10x optical zoom.
Not a huge number, sure, but it was certainly a more… Read More

Slowly but surely the Moto Z is getting an ecosystem. The promising handset launched with some solid specs and a handful of add-ons that made it the most fully formed modular handset to date — which, granted, isn’t saying a whole heck of a lot.
And Motorola’s been working to add to those offerings by opening up its Mods to developers and even launching a handful of… Read More

The last time we checked in on Nougat market share numbers (a little over a week ago), the latest version of Google’s operating system was ranked below Gingerbread in terms of adoption. Slowly but surely the needle is starting to move. A handful of manufacturers have announced updates for their devices in the lead up to the holiday, including both variants of the OnePlus 3.
This week… Read More

The Moto Z is an ambitious and impressive device in and of itself, but its success will, in no small part, ultimately be dependent on accessories. In much the same way a gaming console’s hardware prowess doesn’t mean a heck of lot with a great ecosystem of games, a modular handset isn’t much to speak of without the right set of mods.
The Z offered a decent array at launch… Read More

My first cell phone was a Sanyo. But only because I couldn’t afford a Motorola. I wanted a StarTAC. All the cool kids had a StarTAC. My Sanyo said loud and clear I was not a cool kid. Sometime later, I spent around $650 to be one of the first people to get the RAZR. People didn’t stand in line back then, but I purchased it at the store the first day it was available. I was finally… Read More

Late last year, Lenovo announced some massive layoffs following a quarter of bad financial news. The company let 3,200 employees go, as decline in PC demand, increased smartphone competition and currency fluctuations apparently created something of a perfect storm.
The company is at it again, and while the number is less than list time, it’s still fairly significant… Read More

The latest add-on Motorola’s Moto Z line brings some serious photo taking gravitas to the compelling modular offering. The Hasselblad True Zoom essentially turns the handset into a skinny camera with an enormous 5.5-inch viewfinder.
Given everything we know about our friends at Hasselblad, it’s no surprise, really, that the modular backing is a really lovely looking bit of hardware. Read More

Fast processing, hi-res screens, good cameras. Sure, some are certainly better than others, but even the bad ones are capable of things unthinkable on a mobile device not all that long ago. Heck, at the top of the heap, premium handsets are all starting to look the same.
Over the years, Motorola’s done a commendable job setting itself apart — and from the looks of it, the… Read More

In a world of me-too handsets, Motorola hasn’t had much trouble setting itself apart. Often times that comes in the form of some specific but important feature like crazy battery life or an ultra-tough exterior, but the company does a good job with the plain-old-garden-variety handset, too.
With its Moto G line, the now-Lenovo-owned handset maker has posited the admirable question of… Read More

In a move that is both altogether unexpected and entirely predictable, Amazon is announcing this morning that it will bringing the same on-screen ad subsidized price cut its been offering on its own Kindle products to third party devices. As of this morning, the online mega-retailer is offering up deep discounts on a pair of already low-priced smartphones in a service akin to its Special… Read More

Looks like it won’t be too much longer until U.S. users can get their grubby paws on Motorola’s forthcoming fourth-gen Moto G. Announced last month right around Google I/O, the baseline G4 will be arriving on Amazon, Best Buy (which will be offering up a $50 gift card with the purchase) and Walmart.com, and various other stateside retailers (including Motorola’s own site)… Read More

The Tango-powered (and weirdly named) Phab 2 Pro wasn’t the only crazy phone on display at Lenovo’s Tech World today. Joining it on stage was a new handset from Lenovo’s sister company, Motorola: the Moto Z, a modular smartphone that can use backpack-like accessories to double as everything from a small boombox to a portable projector.
We only got a few minutes with the… Read More

Anyone else starting to get the feeling that all of these modular smartphones are becoming interchangeable? Not in the sense that you can swap products cross-platform, of course. That’s not how proprietary hardware works.
The latest take on the compelling (though far from mature) space are two new Moto Z handsets, which were introduced practically concurrently with Lenovo’s… Read More

So much for pomp and circumstance. A day ahead of Google I/O’s official kick off, Morotola/Lenovo has spilled the beans about three new versions of the company’s warmly received Moto G line of budget handsets. With a naming scheme that will surely bring a wave of nostalgia to early-00s gaming fans and Power Mac owners alike, all three phones carry some iteration of the G4… Read More

Two years after Lenovo acquired Motorola, it looks like Motorola is doing fine. Or at least that’s what the business unit is trying to say. Today at a meeting with reporters, Motorola president Rick Osterloh said that the Moto brand is not going anywhere. You can expect more Moto G and Moto E in the future, as well as more Lenovo phones. If this sounds confusing, it’s because it is. Read More